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Hello and welcome to the newest episode of
YouTube’s favorite game show: How!

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Many!

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Words!

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Will!

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Sam!

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Mispronounce!!

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Today: one narrator, 33 Japanese words, and
thousands of commenters just waiting to pounce.

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Let’s get started.

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So, this is Japan.

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And this is Tokyo.

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And this is also Tokyo, which is kind of odd
because this and this are about this far apart.

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This is kind of odd, of course, because as
you may know from living in a place, places

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are typically in one general place, and not
several very far apart places.

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So, what’s going on here?

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Well, in order to understand why Tokyo includes
islands 700 miles or 1,200 kilometers away,

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you first have to understand the Japanese
prefecture system.

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Not to go all History of Japan on you, but
back a long time ago, Japan was divided into

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a ton of what were called hans, essentially
fiefdoms that were the property of feudal

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samurai lords called daimyo.

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But then in 1871 the Meiji government was
all like “hey, you know how everything is

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run by super-cool warlord samurais?

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Well, what if instead it was run by lame weak
nerds?”

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So, they switched over to what we call the
prefecture system, splitting Japan into 47

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regions that serve as the first level of administrative
division.

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Now, one interesting thing about the prefecture
system is that Japanese people don’t call

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it the prefecture system.

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And I know what you’re thinking: “Well
yeah, obviously they don’t call it the prefecture

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system; they don’t call the country Japan,
either.

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They speak another language, idiot.”

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But while I may be an idiot, that’s actually
not the point I’m making; Japan doesn’t

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call them prefectures because they don’t
exactly have a word for prefectures.

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Instead, they have four words for them.

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Of the 47 prefectures, 43 are ken, “prefectures
proper,” two are fu, “urban prefectures,”

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one is do, a “circuit prefecture,” and
one is to, a “metropolis,” which is Tokyo.

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This system is sometimes collectively referred
to as the todofuken system, because, you know,

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to, do, fu, and ken.

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It’s some top-grade lazy naming; it would
be like if Americans called the federal government

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SupremeCourtCongressJoeBiden or named a band
Crosby Stills Nash and Young.

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Prefectures are further split up into municipalities,
which also come in four forms: cho, which

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means towns; mura, villages; shi, cities;
and ku, the special wards of Tokyo, which

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formerly made up Tokyo City.

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Prefectures and municipalities have extremely
similar governing structures: prefectures

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have a governor, municipalities have a mayor,
and both have councils, all of whom are directly

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elected to a four year term.

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There’s not a real formal delineation of
powers between the prefectures and municipalities––they

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kind of share most responsibilities––but
together, they run essentially all elements

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of domestic life in Japan apart from diplomacy,
national security, and trials: schools, police

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forces, roads, weird little mascots, et cetera.

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In fact, local government accounts for 70%
of government spending in Japan, while the

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remaining 30% goes to defending the island
from its legendary, monstrous enemy: white

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guys who are way too into anime.

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So now let’s do what Half as Interesting
does best and talk about some tiny islands.

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These are the Bonin, or Ogasawara Islands.

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They consist of all these islands, but the
only inhabited ones are these ones: Chichijima

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and Hahajima.

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They were first visited by Europeans in 1543,
then visited by the Japanese in 1670, then

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claimed by the Brits in 1827, then claimed
by the Japanese in 1862, but then the Japanese

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gave up on that a year later, but then twelve
years later they gave up on giving up and

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claimed them again, and put settlers on them
and told all the European and American settlers

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who were already there that they were Japanese
now, creating the world’s first weeaboos.

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And these are the Izu Islands, commonly called
the Seven Islands of Izu, because of course,

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there are seventeen islands and nine of them
are inhabited.

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The Izu are basically Australia but smaller:
the Japanese used them as convict settlements

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until about the middle of the Edo period,
and now they’re a popular tourist destination

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thanks to their scenic beauty, ecological
diversity, and propensity to try and murder

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you.

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So basically, here’s the deal: Japan has
all these islands, and they’ve got to administer

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them somehow, but they don’t want to make
them their own prefecture, because only a

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handful of people live there.

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So they became part of Tokyo’s prefecture,
Tokyo Metropolis, because, well, Tokyo has

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a lot of money, it’s the capital, it’s
on the water, and it has a major port for

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travel between the mainland and the islands.

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In fact, the only way to visit the Ogasawara
islands is a weekly 24-hour ferry ride from

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Tokyo.

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Ultimately, the key to understanding why Tokyo
includes these far-off islands is despite

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the fact that most foreigners think of Tokyo
as a city, the same way we’d think of London

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or Chicago or Flavortown, it’s not a city––it’s
a prefecture.

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Because the islands are so far away, Tokyo
has actually categorized them into four subprefectures,

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a relatively unusual form of sub-government
in Japan that includes regional offices to

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help add more structure on top of municipalities.

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The Izu islands are divided into the Oshima
subprefecture, the Miyake subprefecture, and

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the Hacijo subprefecture, and the Ogasawara
Islands are all one subprefecture: the Ogasawara

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Islands, and a handful of further-out islands
that historically weren’t considered part

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of the Ogasawara islands, the Volcano Islands,
Nishinoshima, Minamitorishima, and Okinotorishima,

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which are maybe islands or maybe a cold-hearted
ploy at expanding Japan’s EEZ.

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It’s actually a fascinating story––if
only someone had made an easily digestible,

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well-researched, humor-filled video on that
topic… oh wait someone did.

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This system can lead to some weird consequences,
though.

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For example, Tokyo’s population density
is technically listed as 6,363 people per

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square kilometer, but that number is bigly
skewed by the islands, which have a lot of

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area and a not lot of people: if you just
considered mainland Tokyo, its population

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density would be about 7,780 per square kilometer.

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Another challenge is that the governor of
Tokyo prefecture has to be voted on by everyone

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in Tokyo, which means that the mayor of all
this can’t be officially declared until

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ballots come in from here.

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Yet another difficulty is that our data suggests
that less than half of the residents of the

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Tokyo Islands are subscribed to Nebula.

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